George Washington's Mount Vernon; At Home in Revolutionary America

The format us approximately 7,25 inches by 10.25 inches. xxi, [1], 300 pages Illustrations. Maps. Appendix. Notes. Index. Inscribed by the author (Robert) on the half-title page. The inscription reads For Carol on your 60th Love, Rob Nov. 12, 1998. Illustrated endpapers. Illustrated dust jacket. The dust jacket is price clipped. Robert Fenton Dalzell, Jr. was a professor and author. After graduating from University School in Cleveland, he ventured east to Amherst College, where he discovered two of the great loves of his life: American history, and Lee Baldwin. He married both, beginning unions that lasted for the rest of his life. He earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1966 and, after teaching there for a few years and beginning a family, moved in 1970 to Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he taught history and American studies at Williams College for the next 42 years, retiring in 2012. Robert authored five books and, with his wife, coauthored. In a lifetime that saw a great deal of social change, Robert was passionate about the national experiment and its search for political solutions that brought more to more Americans. Lee Dalzell meanwhile pursued her own career at Williams College, working for the library for 28 years, ultimately as Head of Reference at Sawyer Library. George Washington's Mount Vernon brings together--for the first time--the details of Washington's 45-year endeavor to build and perfect Mount Vernon. In doing so it introduces us to a Washington few of his contemporaries knew, and one little noticed by historians since. Here we meet the planter/patriot who also genuinely loved building, a man passionately human in his desire to impress on his physical surroundings the stamp of his character and personal beliefs. As chief architect and planner of the countless changes made at Mount Vernon over the years, Washington began by imitating accepted models of fashionable taste, but as time passed he increasingly followed his own ideas. Hence, architecturally, as the authors show, Mount Vernon blends the orthodox and the innovative in surprising ways, just as the new American nation would. Equally interesting is the light the book sheds on the process of building at Mount Vernon, and on the people--slave and free--who did the work. Washington was a demanding master, and in their determination to preserve their own independence his workers often clashed with him. Yet, as the Dalzells argue, that experience played a vital role in shaping his hopes for the future of American society--hope that embraced in full measure the promise of the revolution in which he had led his fellow citizens. George Washington's Mount Vernon thus compellingly combines the two sides of Washington's life--the public and the private--and uses the combination to enrich our understanding of both. Gracefully written, with more than 80 photographs, maps, and engravings, the book tells a fascinating story with memorable insight.…